mandolin

He had been in Spain, and there had indulged in serenades and had made friends with a Spanish girl who played the mandolin. In Switzerland he had killed chamois.

Would it not be rash to conclude that there was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the thin music of a mandolin?

So when Langwidere sat in her easy chair and played soft melodies upon her mandolin, her form was mirrored hundreds of times, in walls and ceiling and floor, and whichever way the lady turned her head she could see and admire her own features.

On a table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple.

For he never travelled without a case of swords, with which he had fought many brilliant duels, or without a corresponding case for his mandolin, with which he had actually serenaded Miss Ethel Harrogate, the highly conventional daughter of a Yorkshire banker on a holiday.

There was the occasional sound of music, of mandolins, sufficiently removed to be an agreeable accompaniment rather than an interruption to the conversation.

They are a mandolin just waiting to be carved, adorned and stained or perhaps an elegant classical guitar eager to spring forth.

* STRUMMING ALONG: The Madeira Mandolin Orchestra is to play in Huddersfield, conducted by its musical director Eurico Martins (pictured left)

From the world of hard-driving bluegrass, Richard Collins proves his talents on mandolin and five string banjo.

So, if you have a chest of old mandolin music from your great-grandfather's collection moldering in the attic, or a Yizkor book that happens to mention the pieces that your great-uncle's mandolin orchestra played in Poland in 1933, drop Yonai a line.

"Bluegrass Jamming on Mandolin" is a handy, comprehensive Bluegrass mandolin textbook with audio CD for further instructions, examples and even Word files with tune lyrics for the songs covered in the book.

All right, it's been a while since they technically qualified as lads, but old friends Mac McHale and Emery Hutchins promise a Celtic-inspired evening of plaintive ballads, foot-stomping shout tunes, soaring mandolin solos, gospel sing-a-longs, traditional Irish tunes and story telling April 14 at the Grass Roots Coffeehouse in Northbridge.